The present invention relates to an improved radio pager and, more particularly, to a radio pager capable of generating alert tones corresponding to musical note information included in a paging signal which the receiver receives from a base station.
It has been customary with a radio pager to receive a paging signal consisting of an address code group and a message code group sent from a base station. The pager compares the received address code group with an address code assigned to the pager. If the former coincides with the latter, the pager alerts the user of the receipt by outputting sound or vibration in a single pattern stored in the pager beforehand.
The radio pager may store a plurality of different patterns of sound and vibration beforehand. For this kind of pager, the base station adds a particular code designating desired one of the patterns to the address code group and then sends it to the pager. In response, the pager selects the pattern designated by the particular code and then drives a speaker or a buzzer.
Further, the radio pager may store a plurality of fixed sentences beforehand, as taught in Japanese Utility Model Laid-Open Publication No. 1-029933. In such a case, the base station adds a particular code designating desired one of the fixed sentences to the address code group and then sends it to the pager. In response, the pager selects the fixed sentence designated by the particular code, synthesizes a speech, and then drives a speaker.
The conventional radio pagers with the above various schemes have some problems yet to be solved, as follows. Because the sound and vibration patterns or the fixed sentences must be stored in a memory beforehand, the number thereof is limited by the capacity of a memory available with the pager. Moreover, a number of sound and vibration patterns or fixed sentences cannot be stored without resorting to a large capacity memory, resulting in an increase in production cost. In addition, the sound and vibration patterns and the fixed sentences are not open to choice.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a radio pager capable of receiving from a base station a paging signal consisting of an address code group and a message code group including a musical note code group, combining frequencies corresponding to the note code group, and modulating the frequencies to output a melody, and thereby producing alert tones.
In accordance with the present invention, in a radio pager for receiving from a base station a paging signal consisting of an address code group and a message code group including message data and musical note data, and displaying, when an address code of the address code group is coincident with an address code assigned to the radio pager, a message on an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) while causing a speaker to sound, a controller separates the paging signal into the address code group and the message code group, and separates the message code group into the message data and the musical note data. A melody generating section generates a melody corresponding to the musical note data separated by the control means.